China's financial institutions made outbound direct investments of 91.37 billion yuan (about $15 billion) in other countries and received 68.03 billion yuan of direct investment from overseas in 2014, the nation's foreign exchange regulator said on Wednesday.

Overseas investors withdrew 16.18 billion yuan from China in 2014, with net foreign direct investment into the country reaching 51.85 billion yuan, nearly double the 26.49 billion yuan in net FDI received in 2013, according to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange (SAFE).

China's domestic financial institutions, including banks, insurers and securities firms, saw net outflows of 38.26 billion yuan in 2014, a sharp decline on the figure of 71.62 billion yuan the previous year.

SAFE has been releasing data on a quarterly basis since 2012 as part of efforts to increase the transparency of foreign exchange statistics.